


Turn On My Charm

by Bethanlovescoffee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Strangers to Lovers, YouTuber Sirius Black, alternate universe - youtuber
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29061768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bethanlovescoffee/pseuds/Bethanlovescoffee
Summary: Sirius Black is a YouTube phenomenon. A YouTube phenomenon who develops a crush on his video editor.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 216
Kudos: 549





	1. I: Marauders Co.

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Turn On My Charm](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29101626) by [ellovz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellovz/pseuds/ellovz)



> A huge thank you to my beta reader [Ri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlyy_hair_dont_care/pseuds/curlyy_hair_dont_care) who is very awesome and much appreciated!
> 
> This fanfcition has been created after I posted a Tumblr prompt and received overwhelming support on both Tumblr and Instagram to turn it into a full length ao3 fic! The prompt in question can be found [here](https://bethansfandoms.tumblr.com/post/641314951022133248/i-keep-seeing-these-and-i-just-need-more-of-it-so)

“Three, two, one!” James unlocked the door. “Holy shit!”

That summed it up quite well, Sirius thought. Suddenly, it all felt quite real.

Sirius had started his YouTube channel at eighteen. Two and a half years down the line, and he had one of the highest subscriber counts of all time. It had taken a lot of time, effort, and money, but finally, he had an office. A whole floor of a building complex in central London. A shared office space for James and Sirius. Or as they were better known, the marauders.

Sirius’ early videos were almost entirely ‘pranking my roommate’, a series that had blown up and had a total of thirty-seven parts. James had become such a big part of Sirius’ channel that he eventually created his own. Never in a million years did Sirius think it was something he could make a living out of. But here he was, in an office that was his.

There was a long dining table in the centre, laden with food, alcohol, plates and glasses. Obviously, Sirius had seen their new space but he hadn’t seen it decorated. There was a large TV with a sofa and several gaming stations- the spot he and James would now film their gaming videos. To the right was a room with large glass windows where a handful of computers were visible. The editors room. It was still crazy to Sirius that he wouldn’t have to edit his own videos anymore. That his channel had created enough money to hire somebody to do that. He’d hired his first editor a little over six months ago, it seemed more surreal now that there was a whole room for it.

Next to the editor’s room, was his space. A camera pointing straight at his new sofa and backdrop for all of his future videos. There was a kitchen, complete with fridge, microwave, sink and oven. A bathroom, which was not much of a surprise as it was pretty essential but still very cool. On the opposite side, another room. This one with computers again but he knew it belonged to the merch, marketing, and finance team. They had an office; they had a business. It felt amazing. It was all the same people who had helped him from the beginning, but now they could all work in the same place. If they wanted to, of course, a lot of it could still be done from home.

“I feel like we should pop some champagne or something,” James announced.

“On it!” Marlene McKinnon, who handled all their marketing, handed the bottle to James.

“Careful,” Lily pleaded, “when you did that at our wedding you almost blinded someone.”

James waved a hand dismissively. “What are the odds of that happening twice?”

Quite high, was the answer. The cork fired across the room and it almost hit someone. Sirius didn’t recognise him, actually, which was odd. There was only a total of seven of them, including himself and James, hardly many names to remember.

“Oh,” Lily said, following Sirius’ eyeline, “this is Remus Lupin! He’s your editor!”

Sirius raised an eyebrow, “my editor?”

“Yeah,” Remus replied. “Mary will still edit James’ and the joint channel stuff but we thought it’d be good to have someone else on board. You know, just to get it all done quicker.”

Sirius nodded and walked over to him, extending a hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The party was pretty standard of the Marauders company, for they were a company now, officially. They all drank a bit, ate a lot, and then Peter, their financial manager, suggested they all play Mario Kart. Dorcas, their thumbnail and merch designer, won. She always did.

“For people who play video games on the internet for a living, you two are surprisingly crap.”

Sirius laughed; he couldn’t really argue with her there. Truth be told, he and James sucked at video games, but people didn’t watch their gaming videos for their gaming, they watched it for them.

Pool was the next suggestion. Sirius didn’t know who had requested that the office have a pool table but he didn’t really complain. They decided to play in teams. James, Peter, Mary and Remus, against Sirius, Lily, Dorcas and Marlene.

“Don’t you want to be on my team?” James pouted as Lily assigned them their groups.

She stuck out her tongue, “no, you suck.”

James laughed harshly, “we’ll win, right team! One of you better be a secret pool hustler…”

“What are the stakes?” Sirius asked. “What’s the prize.”

“Or forfeit,” Marlene added.

James thought, “okay, uh, losers pay for the pizza.”

“We’re getting pizza?” Mary asked.

“We are now!”

It became evident why Lily didn’t want James on her pool team. He sucked. He took the first go and impressively managed to get none of the balls into the pockets. Sirius went next for his team and potted a stripe. The game continued, all of them taking it in turns, team at a time.

“Remus,” James announced, passing him the pool cue, “you’re up.”

Remus studied the table.

“Which one you going for?” Mary asked, “none of them look very easy.”

Remus lined up the cue and hit the white ball. It hit one of the balls into a pocket, and the angle it bounced off of it pocketed another.

“Holy shit,” James said, clapping him on the back. “Was that a fluke or are you a professional?”

Remus shrugged, “it was probably a fluke.”

He was being modest. Every single time Remus had a turn, he pocketed the most impossible shots. James’ team ended up winning, with no help from James. It was all thanks to Remus.

Sirius caught his eye and smiled at him, when Remus returned it, Sirius felt himself flush slightly.

That, he thought, was not convenient. Not convenient at all.


	2. II: New Beginnings

The novelty of having a new workspace had not worn off. Whilst nobody _had_ to work there, for the first week, everybody did. Sirius was filming a new video both by himself and with James every single day which gave Mary and Remus plenty to do. Dorcas was constantly designing new thumbnails and new merchandise, Marlene was developing a new website, Peter was constantly dealing with the merchandise shipping process, and Lily was answering phone calls almost every day asking if James and Sirius were going to Vidcon this year or if they’d do interviews.

It was on Twitter that Sirius announced that, starting next week, he would be uploading every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. As well as that, the Marauders YouTube channel would have new joint content every Thursday. This was the most frequent upload schedule Sirius had ever decided to commit to, and the internet went crazy.

On the following Sunday, all eight of them decided to order a takeaway to the office. Just for one last celebration. They couldn’t decide, of course, so they ended up with Indian, Chinese, pizza, and Thai food getting delivered, just to suit everybody.

“You excited to be uploading more?” Lily asked Sirius.

“I think so, yes. I mean… it’s my job. The more I have to do to keep me busy, the better really.”

James scoffed, “yeah, but you have enough money to retire.”

“Ha-ha,” Sirius responded dryly, “just because I’m technically self-employed doesn’t mean I don’t want to be working. I need something to do or I may just go insane.”

“I don’t know how you do it, though,” Remus added, he was still quite quiet around the team who had all known each other for years. “Come up with new video ideas, I mean.”

“Well, most of them are shit, aren’t they?” Sirius laughed, “but people seem to watch them.”

Remus shrugged, “they’re not shit. I mean, I watch them whilst editing them, don’t I?”

“Don’t boost his ego, Remus,” James said, his mouth full of noodles, “his head might not fit out the door.”

At seven o’clock everybody started leaving. Those with work unfinished would just do it at home like they had previously. Sirius, however, waited around. He couldn’t go home, not yet, he needed to wait around for a while. He sat in his filming space, turning his phone off and on repeatedly, waiting for a text. Then he heard running water.

It was Remus, he was in the kitchen.

“You don’t need to wash up,” Sirius insisted. “That’s not what we pay you for.”

Remus hummed, “It’s okay. I don’t mind. Just waiting for tomorrows video to render so figured I’d do something.”

“You’ve finished it?”

Remus smiled, “Yep. Needed to stay here just to add a last couple of bits but it’s done now.”

“You can go home, Remus. You don’t have to be here.”

“Ah, well, there’s quite a lot of expensive software and programming on those computers. I can’t pay for all that.”

“Oh.” Sirius didn’t know what else to say. He had never struggled with money. His family had been horribly wealthy and even once he had run away, he’d been left a generous inheritance from an uncle. And now he was a famous Youtuber who was earning insane amounts for each video, and his upload schedule was about to become more regular. “Can you show me?” Sirius asked. “The video, I mean. I hate watching myself back but I’d like to see how you’ve edited it.”

“Of course.” Remus finished cleaning one of the dirty plates and left it on the dish rack before leading Sirius into the editor’s room. “It’s just finished rendering, here.” He clicked the video and it began to play. They ended up watching all twelve minutes of it. When it was done, Sirius grinned widely.

“That’s hilarious.”

“Well, that’s all down to you really, isn’t it?”

“No, but,” Sirius kept smiling, “the stuff you’ve added, all those zoom in bit’s and music jingles and stuff, they’re brilliant!”

“You think so? I wasn’t really sure what vibe to go for.”

“It’s awesome, thank you so much, Remus.”

“Ah, well. Just doing my job.” He smiled at Sirius who held eye contact for a moment before having to look away.

He checked his phone. One message from Fabian Prewett.

_All my stuff’s gone now._

He sighed and pocketed it.

“You alright?” Remus asked.

“Yeah. I just, uh, well. Went through a breakup a month ago, they’ve just finished moving their leftover things out.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Is that why you’ve been here all day? You didn’t want to see her?”

“It didn’t end particularly well,” Sirius explained. “And it’s a him.”

Remus nodded, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed. Guess I’m part of the problem.”

“Problem?”

“Heteronormativity.”

Sirius laughed, “it’s okay. I’m not out publicly anyway, you wouldn’t have known. Only my friends know. And my only friends are the people I work with here so…”

“Do you ever plan on telling your viewers? It’s okay if you don’t.”

“No, I do. I want to. It’s just… If I told the world, that would include my family. I’m not ready yet.”

“That’s okay, Sirius. You don’t owe people that about yourself.”

“Yeah, I know. It might help people though, to see their favourite Youtuber do it.”

“I’m sure it would. Anyway, I’ve finished up now so…”

“Oh, right, of course.” Sirius stood and followed him out of the editor’s room.

“I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow?” Remus asked.

“Yes. I’ll be here. See you around Remus.” He flashed him a final smile as he disappeared through the door.

Sirius went back to his flat that night and it felt weirdly empty. Fabian had never properly moved in so there wouldn’t have been many of his things there in the first place. A cushion from the sofa was gone, a blanket, a house plant. Sirius cursed when he saw that Fabian had taken the kettle with him. He’d forgotten it had been him who had bought that. Still, it felt easier to move on now. Besides, he had a new office and a new upload schedule and a new editor and they were only a month into the new year. This was his new start. This year would be better.


	3. III: Appreciation Posts

“Anyway, thanks for watching!” James grinned, “remember to like and subscribe and all that shit.”

“James Felicity Potter! Watch your language!” Sirius exclaimed.

“I would like to explain that that isn’t actually my middle name. Anyway, see you next Thursday!”

“Should we have uploaded on Tuesday so that we could say see you next Tuesday instead?”

“Get your mind out of the gutter. Bye!” He stopped recording. “I think that was alright.”

“We’re not seriously going to eat those cakes, are we?” Sirius asked. They had just finished recording a ‘bake with no instructions’ video where both of them made a cake to see whose would come out best. James had put six eggs and a tablespoon of salt into his, so Sirius thought it was pretty safe to assume that James would not be the winner. He’d refused to try it on camera, James had assured him it was wonderful but his grimace had told him otherwise.

“It’s Peter’s birthday soon, we could give him that as a birthday cake?”

James laughed, “I wouldn’t give that to my worst enemy, mate. Anyway, I need to get going.”

“What? It’s only four o’clock?”

“Yeah, but I, uh, I just need to get home for Lily.”

Sirius wanted to ask more about it but James was already putting on his coat and leaving so he decided to ignore it.

“Sirius!” It was Mary. She and Remus were both sat at their desks in the editor’s room. Both of them had decorated the surface. Mary had a potted plant, a lamp, and a stack of post-it notes. Remus just had a pen pot that looked like a vintage baked bean can. Or maybe it was an actual baked bean can.

“I think this joint channel video is done. Do you want to check it?”

Sirius shrugged, “Nah, I trust you. Just upload it. I’ll just be in the next room over; I’m going to read some comments for a bit.”

Mary flashed him a thumbs up. Remus didn’t look away from his monitor.

Sirius never could read every single comment, he used to in the early days. Now he would simply flit through and just read the top ones.

 _Day fifteen of telling Sirius his new editor is awesome._ 50K likes.

Sirius smiled. He would show Remus the comment later. WhySoSirius12 was right, his new editor was awesome. It had been three weeks since they bought the office and Remus had started working there. Sirius still didn’t know him well at all but he was hard working, good at editing, and he was always friendly. Sirius and Remus were the last two in the office everyday which led Sirius to assume that Remus probably lived alone. He was constantly working longer hours than anybody else but every time Sirius mentioned it, Remus just explained it was more like a hobby than a job and that he really didn’t mind.

“Okay, that gaming video is uploaded,” Mary said, putting on her coat. “Did you see Dorcas’ thumbnail for it?”

Sirius grinned, “Yeah, I thought it was awesome.”

“Right? Oh, Lily texted me, she’ll be in the office next week, think James wants her in a video?”

Sirius raised an eyebrow, “For real? Thought Evans wanted to stay out of all of this?”

“She’s technically your CEO, she’s hardly out of it.”

“Okay, well, thanks Mary, video looked great.”

“See you tomorrow!”

Sirius checked his watch. It was five thirty. He didn’t want to go home, not yet. There was nothing for him to do there anyway, aside from microwave a ready meal and watch crap on Netflix.

“Hey, Remus!” he called.

“Yeah?” Remus shouted back.

“I’m going to do a live show! Just giving you the heads up.”

Remus gave him a thumbs up through the window of the editing office.

Sirius set up his webcam in his filming room and hit start before going onto Instagram and Twitter to announce it. Within minutes, thousands had joined.

“Hey! What’s up?”

The chat was already going ridiculously fast, he could hardly read any of it.

“Is James here? Nah, he’s gone home I’m afraid. Just me.”

He was up to fifty thousand viewers.

“Will I record another cover?” he grinned. “Funny you mention that. I may or may not be writing something but you’ll just have to wait and see.”

Fifty-six thousand.

“Sirius say hi to France? Bonjour la France!”

Seventy thousand.

“Am I married? No, no I’m not.”

Ninety thousand.

“Prank James? I’ve been meaning to! It’s harder now that we’re not roommates but we just got a new office so I will definitely have to try again at some point. Leave me suggestions! Burn his flat down? That’s awfully violent, Justine.”

One and a half million.

“Why so Sirius twelve says do you have a new editor? Yes, I do! He’s in the other room of the office, we won’t be bothering him.” The chat did not seem to like that. Suddenly there was an influx of comments, all of them about whoever was editing his videos.

Sirius sighed, “Okay, okay hold on. Remus!”

“Yes?”

“Can you come here?” He watched Remus leave his office and click the door open into Sirius’ filming room. “The chat wants you to know they like the way you edit my videos.”

Remus blushed, “Oh. That’s very nice of your chat.”

Sirius read some of the comments, “Marion says you have the voice of a hot guy.”

Remus laughed, “Marion is wrong.”

Sirius wasn’t sure he agreed with Remus there but didn’t say anything. “Liv wants to know if you’ll come on camera?”

“Ah, well, I’m currently in jogging bottoms and a knitted jumper so I think it’s going to be a no.”

“Cool. The chat hates you now.”

Remus chuckled, “That was a very sudden change of heart. Can I go back to editing your videos now?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll let you work.”

Sirius took his eyes away from him and back to the camera. “Well, that’s all your getting I’m afraid.” Sirius burst out laughing. “Somebody has just joined whose username is Remus Sexy Voice. You guys are insane.”

He wrapped up the live show after about an hour as he started getting hungry. Remus, to no surprise, was still working.

“Hey,” Sirius said, casually leaning against the doorframe, “thanks for doing that. Sorry I put you on the spot.”

Remus looked away from his screen and smiled, “It’s no problem, sorry I didn’t come on camera. Combination of being camera shy and my hair looking like this today.” He indicated to it for effect, an effect that was rather lost on Sirius. It was curlier than usual, sure, but Sirius didn’t really think that was a bad thing. It occasionally fell into his eyes and he kept flicking it away every time it did.

“Well, my fans loved you. Hey, let me show you this.” He showed Remus the comment he had found earlier.

“Wow. You have a cool fanbase.”

“Most of them are cool, yeah.”

“Only most of them?”

“I don’t know, Remus, at seventy million there’s statistically got to be some right weirdos in there.”

Remus laughed. “You mentioned singing earlier on your live show. I didn’t know you sang?”

“You don’t watch my videos?” Sirius asked, in mock offence.

“Not even subscribed.”

“Do it or I’ll fire you.”

“Drama queen.”

Sirius gasped, dramatically. “How dare you.”

“Okay, hold up.” Remus got out his phone and typed for a moment before showing Sirius the screen. “There you go. Subscribed. I will not be turning post notifications on, considering I upload them.”

“That’s fair,” Sirius laughed. “Right, I’m going to go. You okay to lock up?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

Sirius nodded. “Right, okay. Goodnight, Remus.” He walked out of the room before stopping and doubling back. “Hey, I was going to get pizza. You don’t want to come, do you?”

Remus looked very torn about the offer indeed. “No, no it’s okay. I’m going to stay here. Thanks, though.”

Sirius nodded, “Sure thing. See you tomorrow.” He walked away a little disappointed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some more! Chapters four and five will be uploaded within the next hour :)


	4. IV: The Donation

Over the next month, Sirius’ subscriber count increased hugely. What with the new upload schedule, and his new editing style, a huge influx of new people had begun to watch both James and Sirius’ videos.

“This is insane!” Peter exclaimed. “Sold out, again.”

“The merch?” Dorcas asked.

“Yes! Every time I place new orders, boom, sold out.”

“You don’t think we need to hire more people, do you?” Dorcas asked nervously. “There’s only so many new designs I can do.”

Marlene shook her head firmly. “Some Youtubers do pretty much all of this by themselves. I say we keep going as we are. James, Sirius?”

“I agree,” James said, slowly. “Besides, we bought the office with there only being eight of us in mind. It’ll be fine. Sirius, can I speak to you for a sec?”

Sirius followed him away from Marlene’s desk and over to the kitchen.

“There’s something I have to tell you and Lily said I could today and I wanted to do it at dinner or something but I’m too excited and it can’t wait.”

Sirius cocked an eyebrow, “Okay?”

“Lily is pregnant.”

Sirius’ jaw dropped. “For real?”

“Yes!”

“How pregnant?”

“Three months.”

Sirius punched his arm playfully. “You managed to keep this a secret from me for three months? How?”

“Trust me, I only did it because Lily threatened me with violence… and there may have been some actual violence in there too.”

“Shit, James, that’s—” he hugged him, “that’s amazing.”

James exhaled and hugged him back. “I’m so glad you said that. I thought you’d be worried.”

“Worried?”

“Because we’re so young and all.”

Sirius pulled away but kept him at arm’s length. “James, you have basically been the only father figure in my life.”

James laughed, “I’ll tell my dad you said that.”

“I have literally been your practice baby for years. You and Lily are going to be great parents.” James nodded and wiped a sleeve under his eye. “Are you crying?”

James sniffled, “Piss off. One more thing, will you be godfather?”

Sirius felt himself welling up too. He wrapped James in another hug.

“Am I… interrupting?”

They both let go of each other and dried their eyes. It was Remus. He had a mug in his hand and was just trying to get a cup of tea.

“Don’t tell the internet what you saw,” James said. “It took me marrying Lily to convince them we weren’t dating.”

Remus hummed as he turned the tap on and filled the kettle with water, “I don’t know, James, that bit of information could go for a good price.”

“Blackmail?” Sirius gasped, “the lowest of the low, Lupin.”

“Relax. I won’t tell the internet you’re dating. Or Lily.”

James flashed him a thumbs up, “Thanks, buddy.”

“Oh, Remus, a new video went up today, you know what that means!” Sirius dug out his phone and scrolled through the comment section. “Ah ha! Day forty-three of telling Sirius his editor is awesome.”

“How many likes?” James asked.

“Only forty-eight thousand. You’re slacking, Remus.”

Remus poured the boiling water into his mug, “I’m not even sure how. The one that went up today was just a conversational video, it hardly needed any editing.”

“Yeah, well, ever since I got you on my live stream people haven’t shut up about you.”

“Remus went on your live stream?”

“Barely,” Remus confirmed, “they heard my voice for like ten seconds.”

“Oh, is that why I keep seeing twitter memes about your voice?” James exclaimed. “I was meaning to ask about that.”

Remus almost dropped the milk as he took it from the fridge, “I’m sorry, memes?”

“Yeah,” James explained. “Like I saw this one and it was like, uh, a list of the hottest things in the universe. One, the sun. Two, Remus’ voice. Things like that.”

Sirius laughed, “Please do a video with me!”

“No way! I can’t be encouraging that!”

James took out his phone, “Here’s another one. A list of things I need to do. One, my homework. Two, Sirius’ editor Remus.”

James and Sirius roared with laughter and Remus just blushed. “Is this what it’s like? Being a Youtuber?”

James clapped him on the back, “You’ll get used to it, mate.” He grumbled something about not wanting to as he walked back into the editing room.

Remus had become somewhat of an inside joke amongst Sirius’ fans. He hadn’t told Remus about it because he wasn’t sure how to even broach the subject. There were all sorts of fan accounts dedicated to him with celebrities they decided he sounded like as the profile picture. There was an array of fake investigations as to what Remus may look like, what his surname was, how old he was. People had even clipped the short amount of time Remus had appeared in Sirius’ live show for and uploaded it to YouTube, some of the videos in question having millions of views. Sirius had made sure Remus had his social media accounts private as realistically, how many Remus’ could there actually be?

“Hey, Remus,” Sirius said later that evening as everybody else got ready to go home, “if I go live this evening, would you be in it?”

“If I agree, will you quit bugging me?”

Sirius grinned, “So you will?”

“Fine,” Remus sighed. “Not for long, though, best to keep them wanting more.”

“Brilliant, thanks!” He walked into his filming room and set up his camera. He’d announced the live show earlier that day in the hope that Remus might agree to it. He hit the record button.

“Hello chat, how are we all?”

The viewers flooded in and Sirius made small talk, answering some of the questions until the inevitable happened. “Give us Remus content. Hold on. Remus!” He called.

“Yeah, yeah,” Remus grumbled, “I’m here.”

“Come say hi!”

Remus sat next to Sirius on the sofa and blinked at the camera, reading the explosion of messages on Sirius’ monitor. “How many people are watching?”

“Uh, three million.”

“What the fuck. Shit, sorry, can I swear?”

Sirius laughed, “Little late I’m afraid. So, Remus, how does it feel to show your face to the internet?”

“Terrible, can I leave now?”

Sirius laughed again, “No! Come on, they love you! Say it back.”

Remus looked straight into the camera, “I love you too. Thank you for the support,” he deadpanned, “I really appreciate all the jokes about how I sound like a sex god or whatever it was somebody tweeted the other day that got six hundred thousand likes.”

Sirius looked away from Remus to read some of the comments but they were moving so fast it was almost impossible. “Eesha wants to know if you can reveal your Twitter handle?”

“For a hundred quid, maybe.”

“There are a shocking number of people offering that money.” A donation pinged up moments later and Sirius’ jaw dropped. “Okay, a big shout out to ‘why so Sirius twelve’ who just donated one hundred pounds… the charity for this month is cancer research UK, in case people were unsure. Thank you so much, that’s incredible.”

“Wow… wait, do I actually have to give them my twitter? I don’t know if the world is ready for my witticisms yet .”

Sirius read the chat, “The donator says Instagram would be fine.”

Remus groaned, “Fine, let me un-private it. There, done, it’s literally just Remus Lupin. No dots or numbers or anything. Funnily enough there aren’t many other Remus Lupin’s on the internet.” He turned his phone onto silent as suddenly it started buzzing. “I should probably turn my Instagram notifications off.” He looked at Sirius and Sirius understood it meant that he wanted to go.

“Okay, thank you so much Remus for enthusiastically agreeing to do this!” Remus rolled his eyes. “I think I’ll wrap it up here as well, just thought I’d introduce the internet to my amazing editor.”

“You’re too kind,” Remus said, batting his eyelashes and forcing an overly-sweet smile. It made Sirius laugh.

“Thank you again for that incredibly generous donation!”

“Yes, that was actually pretty awesome. Very kind.”

“See you soon guys.” He turned off the camera. “I am so sorry!”

“It’s okay,” Remus shrugged.

“No, I had no idea they were going to ask for your social media and stuff, I shouldn’t have read out the question.”

“It’s fine, Sirius. Really.”

Sirius nodded but he still felt rather guilty about it.

“Hey, look at that. Eight thousand followers,” Remus showed Sirius his phone screen. “How long until I’m verified?”

“Don’t joke, you probably will be before long.”

Remus didn’t go back to edit whatever video he was half way through before he’d been interrupted. They ended up talking and drinking tea for an hour or so before Sirius challenged him to the shortest game of pool of all time. Short because Remus won in what had got to be record time.

“Right, I should probably get going,” Sirius announced once Remus had potted the black ball into the pocket perfectly.

“Yeah, me too.”

They pulled on their coats and Sirius held the door open for Remus as they left. “Such a gentleman,” Remus added as he did.

“Hey, Lupin,” Sirius said, just as Remus began to descend the stairs. “You’re trending on Twitter.”


	5. V: The Email

“How many followers you up to now?” James casually asked Remus, leaning against the office’s kitchen counter.

“Nine hundred thousand,” Remus sighed. “It’s only been three weeks.”

“You’re on the home stretch to a million now!” Lily joked.

“Ha-ha,” Remus said, dryly. “Lily how many do you have?”

“Like four million? But that’s after a whole year since James accidentally leaked my Instagram.”

“Innocent mistake.”

Sirius laughed, “James, you tagged her in a post.”

“Yes… by mistake.”

“Your fans haven’t calmed down now that they know what I look like then?” Remus asked, sipping his tea.

“The opposite. They keep uploading that live show to YouTube and editing it and stuff.” Sirius decided to leave it there. Some of the ones he had found were titled things such as ‘Sirius having heart eyes for Remus for three minutes and fifty seconds gay,’ and other such things.

“You should do a video together,” Marlene suggested as she walked past. “People would love it.”

“You could get them to send in questions for Remus,” Lily said, excitedly.

Sirius shrugged, “You know I’m down. It’s up to you, moon boy.”

“Moon boy?”

“It’s what people have been calling you. That and wolfy. Because of—”

“My name, yes, thank you Padfoot.”

“No problem, Moony.”

Remus rolled his eyes. “That’s not my name. How did you come up with Padfoot anyway?”

“There’s actually quite an intellectual answer here,” Sirius explained. “So, Sirius is the brightest star in canis major, the dog star. I wanted to link my alias to dogs just because if I were an animal, I’d so be a dog—”

“I’m more of a cat person,” Remus said, smirking.

“Anyway, my parents used to tell me stories about English folklore. There was this one where people in the British Isles saw these ghostly black dogs and they were thought to be protectors of ley lines. These dogs had loads of different names depending on where in the British Isles you were from, but in Yorkshire, they were known as Padfoot. I remembered the story and the name and thought it was good enough.”

“Wow…” Remus said. “I’m mildly impressed actually. How about Prongs?”

Sirius laughed, “Less intellectual. He stuck a metal prong in a toaster when we were seventeen to try and get a crumpet out, we had to get an ambulance. The name stuck.”

“You did what?” Peter, who had only caught that bit of the conversation, asked, exasperated.

“I lived, didn’t I?” James protested. “Don’t see what the fuss is about.”

It took a week of persuasion, well, begging, but eventually, Remus agreed to do a proper YouTube video. Sirius, and Twitter, were thrilled. He tweeted for people to reply with questions they wanted Remus to answer for a ‘meet my editor’ video, so that on Friday, they could sit down to film.

“I have to warn you,” Sirius said to Remus who was trying to flatten his hair in the mirror, “there is a bit of a theme with some of the responses. I haven’t really picked out many questions yet thought I’d do it as we went, but there is a lot I’ll need to avoid.”

“When you say theme…”

Sirius sighed. “There is a lot about your relationship status. Specifically, with regards to me. People have started shipping us.”

Remus scoffed, “Shipping us?”

“It’s fine. I think people are just trying to have fun. It happens with all YouTubers; I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Okay. Good. Sit down, your hair looks good.” Remus sighed and sat next to Sirius on the sofa, staring into the camera. “Ready?”

“Sure.”

Sirius stood up and hit record before retaking his seat. “Hello! Welcome to another video. Today I am joined by a very excited guest,” he indicated to Remus whose expression was perfectly neutral.

“Oh, you want me to introduce myself? I am Remus.”

Sirius laughed, “Remus! For those of you who don’t know, Remus is my editor. He started working for us a few months ago. How are you finding it so far?”

“It’s okay.” He smiled when Sirius gasped, “Kidding. I really enjoy it.”

“Remus is also nearly at a million Instagram followers. Is there anything you wish to say to those people who have already followed you?”

“Get a life?”

Sirius burst out laughing. “Okay, without further ado, let’s get into some questions.” He withdrew his phone and started scrolling, “edit out my scrolling.”

“Well duh,” Remus chuckled. “I’m going to leave that bit in.”

“What? No! Okay, question one, what’s it like having to look at my face all day?”

Remus stuttered slightly, “It’s a weird way of describing what I do here, but it’s okay.”

“Correct answer. Question two, who is nicer, me or James?”

Remus hummed I thought, “I’m going to go with Lily.”

“Wise choice.” He scrolled some more. “Jesus Christ. Are you single? What is your phone number?” he mumbled the questions as he kept scrolling. “Oh, here’s a good one, would you rather kiss Sirius or die.”

Remus grinned, “What kind of question is that?”

“No idea. Don’t keep that in, by the way. Don’t need to encourage the fanfiction.”

“The what now?”

“Here’s another subtle one. Remus, do you like men?” he asked, voice laced with sarcasm.

“Yep.”

Sirius almost choked on air. “Leave that one in?”

“Yeah, maybe not,” Remus chortled.

They did manage to find enough questions that were not of that nature, however, and spent a good hour or so laughing together before they finally concluded there was enough footage.

“So,” Sirius asked as he shut the camera off. “How was that?”

“Not as weird as I thought it would be? I always kind of presumed talking to a camera would be strange.”

“It’s easier with someone else. So, I’ll send this over to you and you can edit it?”

“Sure thing. When do you want it uploaded?”

“Wednesday? Monday if it’s done but don’t worry about it if not.”

“Awesome. Thanks, Sirius, I had fun.”

Sirius smiled. “Yeah, me too.”

Just as Sirius left, Marlene shoved the door open, her eyes wide. “Sirius, there’s something you need to see.”

“Marlene? You alright?”

She didn’t look it. “Just… just come with me.” She walked through the office, which was empty now as everyone had gone home, and over to her desk in the room at the far end. “Sirius,” her breath was shaky, “fuck. I don’t even know how to tell you this.”

“Marlene? What is it?” She spun her monitor around.

“This just got emailed to the company. I thought maybe it was just spam but I opened it anyway and… I’ll let you read it for yourself.

_Sirius._

_I know what you are. £10,000 into the account below by next week or I post the pictures._

Sirius blinked at it; the words didn’t mean anything to him. He scrolled down and opened the attachment. His heart dropped. They were photos of him and Fabian on Sirius’ balcony. His private balcony. They were photos of them kissing.

“Sirius… Sirius this is illegal. Really illegal, okay. We can go to the police and—”

“What would the police do?”

“They can trace the email, and the bank account, they could—”

“Even if they did, so what. This person would post them if they were traced.”

Marlene looked at him, helpless. “Even if they did, people might not believe it.”

“What’s not to believe. If those get posted, I have two options. Tell the truth or deny it. I can’t—” his throat felt like it was closing up, “I won’t lie.”

“Sirius…”

“Just leave it with me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I said leave it, Marlene!” he hadn’t meant to shout. Marlene didn’t look angry about it, though, just sad.

Sirius walked away from her desk and back into his filming room where he kicked the sofa before slumping to the floor.

“Sirius?” it was Remus. “Are you okay? I saw—”

Sirius looked up at him, eyes glossy with tears. Remus stopped talking and sat down next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Then, Sirius cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun-dun-dun! Sorry for leaving it like this! I can't tell you when the next chapter will be up but I will do it as soon as possible. (Thank you for the support already! It's only been up for a number of hours and i have already received lots of lovely DM's and comments!)
> 
> IMPORTANT: The next few chapters will peruse this plot line and forced coming out is going to be a theme. I will put a CW at the beginning of the next one but just in case this is something you are uncomfortable about reading for whatever reason. It is, however, going to be a prominent part of this story <3


	6. VI: Not Ready

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for forced coming out

“Sirius,” Remus said, voice soft, “what happened?”

Sirius took his hands away from his eyes and let them fall into his lap, looking up at him with sad grey eyes. “I’m getting blackmailed.”

Remus’ eyes widened, “You what?”

“Someone has photos of me and my ex,” he wiped his eyes with his sleeve again, “says we have to pay them or the photos get leaked.”

“Oh my god. Where did they get the—”

“I have no idea. They’re old, though. Me and Fabian, the guy I’m in the photos with, we were always so careful. We wouldn’t even go out in public together really, not in London. The photos are of us on my balcony. That person knew what they were looking for, they must have done.”

“What are you going to do?” his hand was still on Sirius’ shoulder but Sirius wasn’t about to shake him off. It was quite comforting, really.

“Marlene wants me to go to the police.”

“Will you?”

“What’s the point? By the time they figure out who sent that email, the photos will have been leaked. I told her not to bother. I basically only have one option…”

“Make a coming out video,” Remus supplied, his voice barely audible.

“Exactly. If I do that, those photos are worthless.”

“Are you ready?”

Sirius shook his head firmly. “No. But I don’t have a choice. If this gets out, I’ll just have to do it anyway. Besides, Fabian, he—” Sirius’ voice broke slightly as he tried to compose himself, “those photos will be everywhere. I can’t do that to him. This isn’t just an invasion of my privacy, it’s his too.”

Remus nodded. “I understand.”

“I’m not going to mention blackmail in the video. Or else those photos gain status again.” He shifted nervously. “Remus… you can’t tell anybody; I’ll say the same to Marlene too. As far as anyone knows, I just decided now was the time. If James finds out I’ve been blackmailed, he won’t sleep until he finds out who did it. That person doesn’t deserve my attention, though, so I need to—”

“Sirius,” Remus cut him off. “I understand. Let me help you make the video. We need it done as soon as possible, yeah?”

Sirius felt the urge to cry again. “Thank you,” he managed to croak out.

They started working straight away. Sirius wanted the video filmed, uploaded, and edited as soon as possible and Remus had agreed to stay for as long as that took. Sirius decided not to film in his usual room; his videos had had virtually the same backdrop for years. This one was different, however. They set up the camera and lighting in front of a plain white wall.

“I don’t know if I can get through this without crying,” Sirius muttered, staring into the lens.

“I know being camera shy isn’t something you’re used to, but maybe just try the oldest trick in the book and pretend it isn’t there. Just talk to me.”

Sirius sighed and hit record. “Here goes nothing.” He let the red button that indicated it was filming blink a few times before he started speaking. “I don’t like women.”

Remus burst out laughing and Sirius let himself grin. “You’re meant to be coming out as gay, Sirius, not a misogynist.”

“I like women… but not like that.” He let himself smile for a moment before it faded. “Okay, time to be serious. I mean, shit, time to be… sensible.”

When editing later, Remus left that entire conversation in the video. A small moment of light-heartedness before Sirius stood there and poured his heart out. Sirius let himself talk for a long time, far longer than he knew the video could be. He let it all out, everything that had been eating away at him since he started YouTube. He talked about his family and how he was raised in a very conservative environment, he threw in an awkward wave and explained how this would be the first his family was hearing of this as well. He talked about why it had taken him so long, about how he had always wanted to keep his private life private and his sexuality didn’t seem relevant to his content. Finally, he talked about himself as a boy and how seeing something like this growing up would have made all the difference.

“To those who can’t accept this, I do not apologise. I have spent my whole life apologising for something as trivial as who I fall in love with and I won’t do it again. All money and proceedings I make off of this video will go to the Trevor Project, a non-profit organisation that provides a helpline for all LGBTQ plus youth. So, if you watched this far only to hurl insults at me through your screen, you have helped this wonderful organisation anyway. Thank you!”

Remus laughed slightly at that and Sirius caught his eye before looking back to the camera. “I—” he hung his head.

“Go on, Sirius, you’re nearly there. Just wrap it up.”

Sirius didn’t look back at the camera, instead, he leant back against the wall and let his head fall back. He didn’t cry but his eyes were glossy. “Fade this to black,” Sirius said to Remus, keeping his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “I’ll add some text to wrap up the video but I don’t know what else to say right now.”

“It’s okay.”

“Can you turn the camera off?”

Remus walked over and stopped the camera recording. “Done.”

“Fuck.” Sirius let himself slump against the wall.

“How are you feeling?”

“Angry.” The answer surprised even Sirius. “Someone took the freedom of making that video away from me, you know?”

“Yeah,” Remus said, sadly. “I know. You should be proud of that, though. And all the money going to charity. That’s…”

“It’s the least I could do, really. I don’t want to make money off of it.” He checked his watch. “It’s getting late, Remus. You should go.”

“You should too.”

“Na. I might go through that footage, take out the bits I don’t want you leaving in there and then you can edit what’s left.”

“Or we could do that together.”

Sirius looked up at him, “Why are you being so nice? Look, you don’t have to be here, it’s a Friday evening.”

“I have no better offers and you shouldn’t be alone right now. Unless you want me to go, of course.”

“No,” Sirius said, far too quickly. “I just don’t want you to feel obligated to be here.”

“Well, I don’t. Come on, let’s go edit this.”

They spent the next few hours sat close in order to see Remus’ computer screen. Remus would talk through what he was doing and Sirius would just nod and pretend to understand. He used to edit his own videos for the first few months but Mary had done it all not long after that and the software had definitely changed significantly.

“It’s nearly midnight,” Sirius pointed out.

“This is nearly done, though, if you’re not too tired?”

Sirius shook his head, “Continue.”

He did. He ran every decision past Sirius first but Sirius always just agreed. He trusted Remus’ judgment and he honestly didn’t care at this point, he just wanted it over with.

“It’s thirty minutes. Is that okay?”

“It’s perfect.”

“Okay,” Remus nodded, “then that’s it. Done. When do you want it uploaded? I could schedule it?”

“Tomorrow but… but I think I’ll come in and do it, if that’s alright. It’s a Saturday so nobody else should be here anyway.”

“Okay. Come on, then, let’s go.”

Sirius stayed seated for a moment, though. “You go ahead. I’ll—”

“Go home, Sirius. You need to sleep.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Please. For me.”

Sirius wasn’t even sure what Remus meant by that but he let himself be pulled into a standing position anyway. Remus looked at him as though he were glass. Like he was delicate and about to break at any moment.

“You have my number,” he said, handing Sirius his coat, “call me if you need anything. Doesn’t matter what time.”

Sirius forced a smile. “I’m okay. Really.”

“You’ve had a long day. Please get some sleep.”

“Okay, mother,” Sirius mocked.

They lived in different directions and took separate taxis back home as it was late and walking seemed like a tall order. It was only when Sirius unlocked his front door and changed into the comfiest clothes he could find, that the tiredness actually hit him. He was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. He put his phone on charge and then cursed under his breath, he’d never thanked Remus. It felt stupid to want to do anything about it now, it was almost one in the morning. Remus had said he could call him, though. He found his contact and hit call before he could change his mind.

“Sirius, are you okay?” His voice sounded panicked.

“I’m fine. I just realised I never said thank you. For staying with me and helping me film and editing and everything. It’s not… you didn’t have to.”

“Oh. That’s okay.”

“You always do so many extra hours.”

“Really, I don’t mind.”

“Okay… well… thank you. Again.” Sirius hadn’t really planned anything more to say.

“Hey, Sirius.”

“Hm?”

“Maybe you hate the fact you had to film that video today. You should be so proud of it, though. And yourself, you should be proud of yourself too.”

Sirius was glad nobody was there to see him smile. It was nice, he decided, to phone Remus. They had never talked outside of the office before. “Thank you,” he said, again. It started to feel foolish to keep repeating it but he didn’t know what else to say. “I’ll let you get some rest.”

“Goodnight, Sirius.”

“Night.”

He slept far easier than he thought he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the overwhelming support and lovely comments and messages! I will try to update this as frequently as i can :)  
> This fic is now being translated into Russian by ellovz! Check the notes at the very beginning for the link in case. (Mentioning it here just in case that is relevant for you!)


	7. VII: The Video

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> forced coming out still prominent theme in this chapter <3

Sirius couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed until mid-day. When he eventually did, he kept on the jogging bottoms he had slept in the previous night and pulled a jumper over his pyjama shirt before finding a beanie to cover his messy black hair. He looked rather terrible but couldn’t find it within himself to care. He was going to take a taxi to the office, upload the video, and then never go on the internet again. He checked his phone. He had one missed call from Remus, two from Marlene, and six from James. He knew whatever it was must be important if even Remus had called him, but he pocketed the phone and decided he would call them back later. He couldn’t put off this stupid video any longer.

The taxi pulled up at the building complex and Sirius decided to walk up the seven flights of stairs instead of taking the lift, he could probably use the exercise anyway. He got out his keys and went to put them in the door but realised it was already unlocked. He slowly pushed it open.

“Sirius!”

Sirius just stood there, dumbfounded. Everyone from the company was there and standing in front of the dining table which had been decked out with a rainbow table cloth, rainbow napkins, rainbow cups, and a cake.

“Is this some weird fever dream?” he asked closing the office door behind him. He looked over to Remus who smiled at him apologetically.

“Marlene,” he explained.

“Don’t you dare blame me for this, Remus,” she retorted, “I mentioned to James that you were posting a coming out video, I’m so sorry I kind of thought you’d have told him. He decided a party was in order.”

“Of course he did.”

James wrapped him in a hug, “How come you decided you were ready?”

Good. Marlene hadn’t told them about the email. “Oh, you know, just felt like it.” He caught Remus laughing at them into his rainbow cup.

“Okay, well, I’m super proud of you dude.”

“We all are,” Lily added. “Right team?”

“Right!” they chorused.

Sirius let himself smile, “Well, you really didn’t have to— what the bloody hell is that?”

James followed his eyeline to the cake. “Okay, I can explain.”

“Please do.”

“Well… I called a bakery and asked if they had gay cakes and they said they did, which, to be honest, I was not expecting. So, I went to pick it up this morning and it’s…”

“It’s a penis.”

Everybody aside from James started laughing.

“It…” James looked at it. “Yeah. Although I believe the cake inside is rainbow if that sways it for you?”

Sirius laughed, really laughed. Part of him wanted to be annoyed that everybody was here but mostly, he was relieved. Remus had been right; he shouldn’t be alone right now.

They all huddled around as Remus and Sirius sat side by side at Remus’ computer, watching the video slowly upload.

Everybody kept clapping him on the back and telling him how proud they were. Remus would watch his expression every time, flashing a reassuring smile when Sirius caught him looking. He was glad somebody knew the real reason as to why this video had to be uploaded. His leg bounced under the computer desk and he kept knocking it into Remus but the other man never said anything about it.

“It’ll only be a few seconds now,” Sirius said, quietly. Sure enough, it finished uploading. Everyone cheered and congratulated Sirius profusely. Sirius just sat there, staring at the screen where he could clearly see the video under his profile.

‘Guess who’s gay…’ was the title they had settled on. He would have laughed if his throat didn’t feel like it was about to close up.

“To the table!” James announced. “Let’s go eat some—”

Peter cut him off. “If you call it anything aside from cake, you will feel my wrath.”

“Cake… of course I was going to say cake, why would I reference what shape it was?” James assured him, winking as he left the editor’s room.

Remus squeezed Sirius’ shoulder, “you okay?” he asked, once everyone else had left.

“Can we turn the internet off? Just for a bit… I don’t want to see any news stories or comments or anything right now.”

“Consider it done.” Remus stood and walked out of the room and Sirius stayed sat at his desk until YouTube disappeared from the monitor and was replaced with a ‘no internet’ screen.

The cake, despite its rather inappropriate appearance, tasted pretty good. They had all agreed it was far too early for drinking alcohol and so a various selection of fizzy drink and cups of tea were on offer. James petitioned for pool and Sirius made sure he was on Remus’ team this time. They won, obviously.

For the first hour after the video had been uploaded, things seemed to be going pretty well. Then Sirius’ phone rang. He hadn’t thought to turn it off because the only people he actually talked to were the people in the office.

_Incoming call_

_Regulus Black_

Everyone was looking at him expectantly as he stared at his phone.

James’ eyes widened in concern. “Sirius… that isn’t your family, right?”

“Give me a minute.” He quickly walked towards the door, ignoring James’ attempts to call him back, and let the door slam shut behind him. He walked across the corridor and over to the stairwell, sitting on the top step with his knees close to his chest. His phone had stopped ringing and he checked his missed call notification. Regulus had left a voicemail. Sirius exhaled as slowly as possible, taking off his beanie and running a hand through his long hair. He contemplated deleting it, but he hadn’t so much as heard his brothers voice since he ran away at sixteen.

“Sirius. It is Regulus. I am not actually sure if this is still your number. I just wanted you to know that I have seen your video. I doubt that mother has although I am sure she will hear of it in no time at all. I—I don’t even know what else to say. I guess I am realising there is a lot I do not know about you. I think I feel bad about that now. Maybe I am too late, whatever. You can call me back if you want but you do not have to.”

Sirius felt like crying and decided he may as well just get it all out of the way whilst he was alone. He turned on his mobile data and decided to check YouTube. “Holy shit,” he muttered to himself. The video had only been up for an hour and it already had two million views. He went to the comments. Sirius scrolled and scrolled and scrolled, looking for hate. He found none. Every single comment was praise and support.

He was trending on Twitter. He found one tweet that had quite a few likes which expressed annoyance that Sirius had brought sexuality up. The number of comments, however, was overwhelming, and every single one was shaming the person who had tweeted it. His fans supported him. Deep down he always knew they would. It was nice, however, to have it confirmed.

Next, he did a google search for himself and went to the news tab. There were already articles about him but they mostly just quoted his video and praised him for it. People didn’t hate him. Most surprisingly, Regulus didn’t hate him.

“Is this seat taken?”

Sirius looked up to see Remus indicating to the space next to him. “Be my guest.”

Remus sat and awkwardly fidgeted with his hands for a moment, waiting for Sirius to say something. When he didn’t Remus cleared his throat. “James wanted to come out here and check on you but I said I’d go. You know, in case you needed to talk about the email or something.”

“I turned on my data and checked social media.”

Remus stared at him, “And?”

“Positive. All of it, really positive.”

“That’s amazing,” Remus said, exhaling.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“So… how are you feeling? About everything?”

Sirius shrugged. “I feel like it’s done now and I just want to… forget about it. Go back to normal, you know. Carry on filming and uploading. Starting with the video we did together, if that’s okay with you.”

“I’ve edited it, it’s all good to go.”

Sirius smiled, “I don’t know how I coped without you.”

Remus smiled back; the eye contact was almost unbearable. “You did just fine before I came here.”

“I know. But these last few months have been crazy. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Sirius had to look away. He wasn’t sure if it was the honey-coloured eyes or he soft spattering of freckles or the way the corners of his mouth tugged upwards as he tried to hold back a smile. Maybe it was just everything about Remus. Whatever it was, it was too much.

“Sirius,” Remus said, slowly.

Sirius turned his face back to him. They were seated far closer than they needed to be, knees touching. Sirius couldn’t help it. His eyes flitted down to Remus’ lips and straight back up again once he realised what he’d done. Remus blinked at him, hesitantly putting a hand onto his knee.

“Say that again?”

They leapt apart. Marlene had come out into the hallway. Remus flashed a half smile at Sirius as he stood up, Sirius could not find the happiness to return it.

“That’s not possible! Check again.” Whoever Marlene was talking to, she was angry. “He wouldn’t do that!” She huffed. “Yes, of course I’m sure! You can’t just—” she broke off. “Bastard.”

Sirius stood as well and walked around the corner to see Marlene pocketing her phone. “You alright there McKinnon?”

She flushed, “Don’t be angry.”

“Not a promising start…”

“I know you didn’t want the police involved in the email—”

Sirius groaned, “I wanted you to drop it!”

“I know, I know. I just—I didn’t tell anyone, I promise. I hired some guy in one of the downstairs offices, he works in IT, cyber security. I asked him to trace the email and bank account, to see if we could work out who had sent it.”

“And?”

“And… it was you.”

Sirius blinked at her, “What?”

“He traced the address back, it was from an email account that belonged to you.”

“Marlene, I didn’t—”

“Of course, I know that! I asked him to double check but he refused. Told me you must have just done it as a publicity stunt or something.”

Sirius laughed, coldly, “If it were publicity, I would have mentioned it in my video, really milked it, you know.”

“Sirius,” Remus said, gently, “I don’t think Marlene actually reckons that you—”

“Of course I don’t!” she said, hurriedly. “But it’s a dead end. He traced it and that email was created from your google account. He was very sure about that… are you angry?”

“That we can’t find out who sent it or that you went behind my back?”

Marlene hung her head, “I’m sorry.”

“Forget it. What’s done is done.” Sirius ran a hand through his hair. “I can live with not knowing.”

“But…” Remus started. He shook his head and shrugged it off. “Don’t worry.”

“No, what is it?” Marlene asked.

“Well… the guy was sure it came from Sirius’ account. What if it did,” he held up a hand as Marlene opened her mouth to protest. “I don’t mean that he sent it, but what if someone hacked his Google account? Or had access to it? If they were logged in, it would be easy enough to set that email up and send it. Smart, too, because if you did try to work it out… well, it’d trace back to you, wouldn’t it? You’d be guilty, Sirius, not them.”

“Well… I mean I leave my account logged on most of the time in the office. But that’s it.”

“Well then,” Marlene said, “someone probably just managed to hack it. Change your password right now. I mean, nobody here would do it.”

“Yeah,” Sirius said, slowly, “you’re right. I’ll change my password.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm evil for that, I know.  
> Than you so much for all the support! Sorry if this update took a little longer. I do want to try and update it weekly at the very least though :)


	8. VIII: Sirius Black's Boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a few lines in here in different languages. I have put the translations in the end notes. (Also, apologies if you speak any of the languages I used because, well, I do not and we all know how good Google translate is... Although I would suggest not skipping to the end notes until you're actually at the end because it ind of mentions the things that happen in this chapter idk anyway...)

The following weeks were so tremendously busy, that Sirius didn’t even have time to think about the email or the fact that he was pretty sure he and Remus almost kissed or his brother or anything. His coming out video had quickly become his most viewed video of all time and it was still trending pretty much everywhere. His second most viewed video was published a few days later. Unsurprisingly, the ‘meet my editor’ was very popular. Remus had gained almost a million followers on Instagram overnight. James, always looking for celebration, had been planning a one million on Instagram party. Unfortunately, for James at least, Remus had gone straight from nine hundred thousand to one million eight hundred thousand and people were now starting petitions to get him verified. Sirius couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not.

The timing of posting his video with Remus was not something he had really thought through. He had come out as gay and then a few days later published a video with the man everybody had decided to ship him with. Remus was either oblivious or too polite to mention it. If that weren’t enough, James and Lily had just told the world that they were expecting a little Potter.

Everybody was overworked. Marlene was accepting phone calls left right and centre from people wanting to interview Sirius about his sexuality or James about his child. Dorcas was desperately trying to come up with new designs for merchandise which was selling out instantly, much to Peter’s annoyance as he seemed to spend all day uploading new products to the website only for them to sell out. James and Sirius, in the chaos of it all, had forgotten the tight posting schedules they had promised themselves to and were filming new videos every day, which kept Mary and Remus very busy. Nobody really understood what CEO Lily Potter did, but she was definitely doing something as she rarely came out of her office.

It was these factors combined that meant it took Sirius almost two weeks to find out that he had been trending on Twitter for a different reason. Not because of his coming out, because of something else. #SiriusBlackBoyfriend. Initially he dismissed it and assumed it was the people late to the party on his ‘meet my editor’ video. It was only when Remus came to find him, eyes wide, that he realised it was something else entirely.

“They posted them anyway?” Sirius asked, scrolling through the various posts containing the photos of him and Fabian.

“Yeah.”

“I should’ve seen it coming. It’s nothing to worry about. We broke up months ago now, it isn’t true, I’ll debunk them now.”

“No, wait.” Remus sat down next to him. “Don’t you see what this means? I found the original account who tweeted them. If we take that down to Marlene’s contact from the IT office downstairs—”

“They can trace it.”

Remus grinned, “Exactly. There is no way it will link back to you. Maybe this person had your Google password, which you changed anyway, but your Twitter? If someone had hacked that—”

“I’d know about it. Shit, you’re right.”

“Do you want to? Find out, I mean?”

“Yeah. Yes, let’s do it.”

Remus leapt up and took Sirius’ hands in his own, pulling him into a standing position. He let go very quickly once he realised what he had done. “His name is Frank. I asked Marlene earlier.” Sirius nodded and followed him out of the office, not answering James when he asked where they were going.

The IT office had the exact same dimensions as the Marauders one, just seven stories below. The main difference being that it was filled with row upon row of computers, all with people hunched over them.

“What do you reckon they’re actually doing?” Sirius asked quietly.

“It’s some sort of cyber security company. I think.”

“Can I help you?” A tall man with deep brown skin and an even deeper voice made their way over to them. “Also, was that door unlocked?”

Sirius looked over to where they had just come in. “Well… yeah.”

“Alice,” he muttered, “never locks the bleeding thing. Anyway, what can I do for you?”

“Uh,” Sirius looked at Remus in the hope that he would say something.

“We’re looking for Frank, is he in today?”

He nodded. “Frank,” he called to a man a few metres away. He looked back to Sirius and Remus, scanning them. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Oh. Probably not,” Sirius said quickly.

“Kingsley, you wanted me?” a man, Frank, asked.

“Yeah, these two are here to see you.”

Frank looked at them for a moment before his eyes widened, “Oh, of course. Yeah, uh, come with me.” He let them through the rows of computers and towards the back of the room. “Alastor isn’t in today so I’m sure he won’t mind if we use his office. Here,” he opened the door and let them inside before following. “Sirius, is it?” he extended a hand.

“Yeah,” Sirius shook it.

“Look, I know what you’re going to say, but those photos came from your account and I’m not saying—”

“Oh, no, it’s not that,” Sirius cut him off. “We were wondering if you could trace a Twitter account back to the owner.”

“Ah. Well, I could. Again, it’s not a productive use of company hours and it’s not even super legal.”

“We’d pay,” Remus offered.

“Yeah, I’d pay. Whatever Marlene did last time, does that work?”

Frank sighed, “You’re lucky I’m poor and have a baby on the way. Okay, find me the account and then bugger off or Kingsley will start asking questions. One of you give me a number I can call you on when it’s done.”

“Thank you,” Remus said, digging out his phone to give Frank his number.

“Yeah, thank you. I wouldn’t bother if it wasn’t important.”

Frank nodded, “It’s okay, really. Marlene explained a little bit to me last time, it sounds like a right hassle.”

“You could say that again,” Sirius scoffed.

Frank informed them he’d probably be an hour or two before showing them out. It was nearing noon and Sirius was reluctant to get anything productive done until Frank had gotten back to him, which is how he and Remus ended up getting lunch together.

“Where are you taking me, exactly?” Remus asked as they left the building complex and walked onto the busy streets of London.

“There’s this amazing Greek place just around the corner. It’s an independent company, usually quite quiet. Hope so anyway, if I see anyone taking photos of me, I might just scream.”

“Does that happen often?” Remus asked. He’d never actually been out in public with Sirius before.

“Yeah. A lot, actually. In the strangest places too. Some people come and ask for a picture and say hi, others just craftily get their phones out and snap away. Taking a photo discretely isn’t easy though so I usually—”

“Sirius!”

As if on cue, a girl with dark hair waved at him, beaming. Sirius waved back and she cautiously made her way over.

“Hi, I’m so sorry, I’m a huge fan and I just—I’m probably interrupting you, I just knew if I didn’t say anything, I’d kick myself for it!”

“You’re not interrupting, it’s fine. Glad you like my videos!”

“Like? Try love! Hey,” she turned her attention over to Remus, “you’re Remus Lupin.”

“Uhm… correct.”

“Wow. Would you mind terribly if I took a picture?”

Sirius smiled, “For sure!”

The girl took out her phone and Remus reached for it, “Here, let me take it.”

“Oh… uh, could you be in it too? Only if you want to.”

Remus gaped slightly, “You want me in it?”

She nodded. Remus just shrugged and stood next to Sirius, crouching slightly so they were at her height. She took the photo and made an impossibly high squealing sound. “Sorry, I just can’t believe I met you.”

“It was a pleasure,” Sirius assured her. “But, well, we best be off.”

“Oh, one more thing. Your coming out video. It helped me so much. It helped so many people, actually. I’ve been scared my whole life but seeing my favourite content creator come out as gay, it’s inspiring. Thank you.”

Sirius blinked at her, “Wow. Uh, no, thank _you_ for saying all that. Have a nice day.”

“You too!”

Remus was still smiling as she walked away. “That was nice.”

“Yeah. Wow. People kept saying it’d shape lives and I couldn’t really comprehend it. But… well. Proof, I guess.”

“Feeling any better about all this?”

“You know what, I am. I’m glad it’s out there. But hey, enough about me, she wanted a photo with you! Remus Lupin is famous.”

Remus rolled his eyes, “She was being polite.”

“Nope, you’re famous, moon boy.”

The restaurant was small and cosy and tucked away in a nook of London. The restaurant owner was a short woman with a pretty face and dark hair. Her face lit up as they entered.

“Sirius, πως είσαι? είστε σε ραντεβού?”

“Very funny, Anne.” He wrapped her in a hug. “Χαίρομαι που σε βλέπω. Can we get a table for two?”

“Usual one by the window?”

“Perfect, thank you.”

She led them up a flight of stairs and over to a table in the far corner. “Here you are. Give us a shout when you’re ready.”

Sirius pulled out a seat for Remus who gasped playfully, “Such a gentleman.” Sirius grinned and sat across from him. “Okay, so when were you going to tell me you could speak Greek?”

“I didn’t realise it was an important piece of information.”

“It—it was impressive.”

“I speak Latin and French too. Tu imprimi? Essetis.”

“I—” Remus smiled, “why do you speak those languages? Where did you learn?”

“J’aime ton sourire.”

“Okay, show off. I don’t understand you.”

“My parents brought me up knowing them. Some of my family are French which is why I learnt that one. Greek and Latin were probably so that my brother and I would grow up to be geniuses or something, having knowledge in ancient languages and all that. I’m a YouTuber so… did not work.”

Remus went for a traditional Greek salad and Sirius, who was slowly working his way through the menu, had some kind of bean soup which turned out to be delicious. He really regretted not coming out for lunch more often. The office was in central London, it wasn’t like he was short of options.

“Frank messaged you yet?”

“Sirius, if he had, you’d have heard about it.”

“You’re right. Sorry.” He took a sip of his drink and stared out the window. “Just wish he’d hurry up is all.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sirius snapped his attention away from the window when he felt Remus’ fingers on his wrist. He knew Remus was just trying to comfort him. It didn’t stop him, however, from pulling his hand away quickly.

“I’m so sorry—” Remus started.

“No, God, no, it isn’t that. I know it’s quiet in here but, it’s just that there are people and—”

“Oh. Of course. I’m sorry I just—”

“No. I mean it, Remus. It wasn’t that I don’t… if people took pictures, it’d give an impression. I’m just cautious I—well, now more so than ever since, you know.”

“Yeah. Sorry. I didn’t even think I wasn’t trying to—”

“It’s okay. Really. I know you were just trying to be nice. My fault, I’m being paranoid.”

Remus nodded. “I think given the circumstances that’s pretty understandable.”

Luckily, Anne came over moments later and Sirius insisted on paying the bill despite Remus’ repeated disputes about how that wasn’t what they had agreed on. They walked back to the office in silence. Sirius needed to talk to Remus but not out in public for anyone to see. It bothered him, more than it should have. He didn’t want Remus to avoid touching him from now on. He also didn’t know how to explain that without it sounding strange.

They walked into the building complex and the moment the door closed behind them, Sirius grabbed Remus’ wrist to stop him from climbing the stairs to their office.

“Remus, wait. Look, about earlier—”

“It’s okay, really, you don’t need to worry about it.”

“I know. I just—I don’t want you thinking that I have a problem with… ugh, I don’t know how to phrase this.”

“I get it, don’t worry.” He went to climb the stairs again but Sirius pulled him back down.

“Wait, can I ask you something.”

Remus swallowed. “Uh, yes?”

Sirius didn’t say anything, though. Instead, he sat down on the bottom step; Remus followed suit.

“Do you see the things on social media about people wanting us to date?”

Remus laughed, “It’s pretty hard to miss.”

“Right, yeah. Does it make you uncomfortable?”

He thought. “Not uncomfortable as such… it’s more like, uh, like I’m worried it’ll make things weird between us.”

“Do you feel weird?”

“No. Not at all. Do you?”

“No, of course not.” Sirius looked at him for a moment before turning his attention back to fiddling with the hairband on his wrist. “That had nothing to do with my reaction in the restaurant, by the way.”

“Christ, Sirius,” Remus muttered, “you can let that go. Really, I don’t mind.”

Sirius sat up a little straighter and in a sudden surge of bravery, placed a hand on Remus’ knee. “Good.”

They were silent for a moment. Remus hadn’t taken his eyes away from the hand on is knee since Sirius had put it there. He did now, though, to look into Sirius’ eyes. “Good,” he repeated back, voice quiet.

“Remus I—” He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Remus had kissed him. It took a split second for Sirius to register it. When he did, he moved the hand on Remus’ knee to grip the arm that was now cradling his face. The angle was slightly awkward as they were sat side by side, but neither seemed to care enough to do anything about it. Sirius just kept kissing him back. Again and again and again.

Then, Remus’ phone rang. They broke apart and Remus groaned in annoyance. “Shit, sorry.” He read the caller ID. “It’s Frank.”

Sirius pulled back from him. “Answer it?”

Remus did and put him on speaker. “Frank, hi.”

“Hey, I traced the Twitter account. Belongs to a Tom Riddle. I don’t know if that’s any help.”

“You’re positive?” Remus asked.

“One hundred percent. Look, I gotta go. Hope that helped though.” He hung up.

“Tom Riddle,” Remus said slowly, “ring any bells?”

Sirius didn’t say anything for a moment. He sat there, breathing as calmly as possible, trying desperately to not hit a wall. Remus seemed to notice this. “Oh my god, do you know him?”

“Not well. Went to University with me. I wasn’t friends with him. I know someone who was though.”

“Not from the office… right?” Sirius stayed in silence, thinking.

“If someone logged into my Google account from another device… it would have told me, right? So, it was probably from a device I was already logged into.”

“You… you don’t know that for definite.”

“No, you’re right. I was almost positive it had just been hacked. But Tom Riddle…” with that, he stood and strode up the stairs.

“Wait, Sirius!” Remus ran after him. “Where are you going?”

“Getting answers.” He knew he was being vague but anger tended to stop him thinking coherently.

“You don’t think—” Remus was panting slightly now in an attempt to keep up. “You don’t think someone upstairs had anything to do with it? Do you?”

“Yes. Maybe inadvertently, I don’t know. Although, it was probably that same someone who logged into my fucking Google account and sent those emails in the first place.” It took him all of his self-restraint to not kick the door down. He settled on shoving it open as harshly as possible. The sound it made was enough to get a reaction from everybody else.

“Woah, mate,” James greeted, “steady on.”

“Is he here?” Sirius asked, voice tremoring.

“Who?” James replied.

“Peter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, gasp, nobody saw that coming.
> 
> Translations (in order):  
> “Sirius, how are you? Are you on a date?”  
> “I’m glad to see you.”  
> “Are you impressed? You should be.”  
> “I like your smile.”


	9. IX: Get Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i said i would update this at least once a week... it has been eight days. forgive me.

“Is he here?” Sirius asked, voice tremoring.

“Who?” James replied.

“Peter.”

As if on cue, Peter and Mary walked out of the editor’s room laughing. The laughter died immediately when they felt the eyes on them.

“Uh, is everything okay?” Peter asked hesitantly.

“Tom Riddle,” Sirius shot, “ring a bell?”

“Oh, yeah, you remember Tom, don’t you? He and I were friends at uni.”

“ _Were_ friends or _are_ friends.”

Peter’s eyes widened slightly, “Uh, were?” He was nervous. Sirius recognised it instantly. After years of sharing a room with someone at boarding school, you get to know them rather well. At least Sirius had thought so.

“You,” he hissed, “did he put you up to this or was it your idea?”

“Sirius,” James said, slowly, “calm down, mate.”

Peter was fidgeting, now, wringing his hands. “Sirius… I can explain.”

That was all the ammunition Sirius needed. He strode towards him, fists clenched.

“Sirius,” Remus had grabbed him around the waist, “stop.”

“Let go,” he requested, as calmly as possible.

“Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“Pretty sure if I punch him, I won’t regret it.”

Peter practically squeaked, everyone else looked at Sirius like was a madman. “Whoa,” Lily said, stepping in front of him, “Sirius, breathe. What’s going on?”

Remus still had an arm tightly around his waist, holding him in place. “Everyone out,” he requested. “Leave Sirius and Peter to talk, Marlene and I can explain what’s going on but not in here.” Nobody moved.

“Remus is right,” Marlene confirmed. “Out.”

Everybody exchanged confused and worried glances but slowly shuffled toward the door. Remus was the last to leave. “Don’t do anything stupid, Sirius,” he said, voice quiet. “Just talk to him, be mature.”

Sirius shook him off, “You don’t get to tell me what to do.” Remus looked hurt and Sirius instantly regretted it. He let him leave the room without apologising nonetheless.

“Sirius… Sirius I didn’t have a choice.”

Remus had been right. He needed to be mature. Sirius inhaled slowly, “Go on then. Explain.”

Peter visibly relaxed when Sirius shoved his hands in his pockets and immediately leapt into the story. He’d been drunk, apparently. He and Tom had been at a pub just over a year ago and Peter had accidentally told him about Sirius and Fabian. “I told him not to mention it to anyone and he agreed, I thought that was the end of it.”

“I still don’t understand why drunk you was baited into outing me but do continue.”

“Well… I don’t know if you know this… but Tom is quite close with, uh, with someone in your family.”

Sirius did not know that. “Who?”

“Your cousin? I think her name is Bella?”

“Bellatrix,” Sirius said through gritted teeth. “Go on.”

“Okay, well, I wasn’t there, but from what I’ve heard, Tom told Bellatrix what I’d told him about you and Fabian. He said he assumed she’d know considering you guys are cousins. He didn’t know about you running away or anything.”

“Yes, well, he wouldn’t. Unless you’d told him that too, I guess.”

Peter gulped. “When you started getting quite famous, Tom reached out to me again. He, uh, he asked about where you lived.

“Peter, if you are about to tell me that you actually told him, I’d say goodbye to your teeth because I think a few of them are about to go missing.”

“No!” Peter wailed. “I told him no!”

“I sense a but coming.”

But then Tom had started threatening Peter, apparently. He had seen an opportunity, a money-making scheme, and he needed Peter’s help to take it. Blackmail appeared to be something of a speciality of his because Peter was successfully blackmailed into taking a photo of Sirius and Fabian. “He said if I didn’t… he’d—”

“This better be bloody good,” Sirius muttered.

“He said he’d get me fired from this job. Something about emailing you and saying that I outed you to him and Bellatrix, stuff like that.”

“Cool. So, in an attempt to save your own neck, you agreed to try and publicly humiliate me?”

“He didn’t say what he’d do with the photos!”

“The fuck did you think he was going to do?”

Peter hesitated. “I didn’t—you guys are the only friends I have! I didn’t want to lose you.”

“And look how that worked out.”

“But… your coming out video. It went down well. Didn’t it?”

Sirius laughed, “You’re right, Peter, maybe I should thank you! Do you want to get dinner, how’s next Friday?”

“Sirius. I’m sorry,” he squeaked. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Wrong. You just didn’t want your stable friendships and job jeopardised. Bet it felt a bit shit when your only other friend started threatening you, huh? It’s not nice, is it? When someone you trust does that.”

“I thought—”

“No, Peter, you didn’t think. You could have told me. You _should_ have told me. I might have gone easy on you if you’d just outed me to one guy. Now the whole world knows. I can’t forgive that so easily.”

Peter looked like he was about to cry. “Tom… he—it was him he—”

“You took the photos. You emailed them to Marlene. None of this could have been done without you, Peter, so I don’t care whose idea it was and I don’t care if you thought it would all work out okay.” Sirius felt himself well up a bit too. “Coming out was supposed to be my thing. I get to tell people when I am ready, you took that away from me.” He sighed and lowered his voice. “You and James were my first and closest friends. Don’t think it doesn’t hurt me to tell you that I never want to see you here again.”

Peter made eye contact for the first time. “You—you’re firing me?”

Sirius rubbed his palms over his eyes. “Yes. Get out.”

“But—”

“Get out.” His voice broke slightly as he said it. To his surprise, Peter didn’t argue again. He quickly packed some things into his rucksack and gave Sirius one final look before leaving. As soon as he had, James pushed the door open and wrapped Sirius into a rib-crushing hug. “Marlene and Remus told us what happened.”

Sirius hugged him back. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Lily had walked up to them. “Room for one more?” They let go of each other enough for Lily to squeeze next to them; she wrapped her arms around the both of them. Sirius felt another pair of arms wrap around him. It was Dorcas. He saw Mary join, then Marlene, then Remus. All seven of them had their arms around each other.

“Yay! Group hug!” James cheered, earning a laugh from all of them. They slowly detached themselves and stood back, smiling.

“Well…” Sirius said, “that felt pathetic.”

Everyone laughed again.

“So, Peter…” Dorcas said, slowly. “He’s out for good then?”

“After a stunt like that I bloody hope so,” James added.

“Yeah, yeah. I don’t think he’s coming back any time soon,” Sirius confirmed.

“How are you though?” Mary asked. “Really, I mean.”

He caught Remus’ eye for a moment. “I’m good. That’s it, now. All done. No more crying. I’m looking at you, Potter.”

James rolled his eyes. “It’s… sad, okay? Not that sad that Peter left, he deserved that, I just mean it’s sad he’d do that, you know?”

“Yeah. I know. Hey, why don’t we order some takeout? Stay here for a bit. If everyone’s up for that of course?”

Everyone was up for it. James went ahead and started writing down everybody’s orders. They decided to have a movie night but agreeing on a film to watch seemed to be almost impossible. Lily and Marlene were petitioning for a chick flick, Dorcas wanted horror, a notion that was shut down immediately, James wanted something with lots of action, Mary wanted something light hearted. They were all so distracted with arguing, that Sirius saw an opportunity to walk over to Remus.

“Hey, can we talk?”

Remus agreed and the two of them slipped out of the office door and into the corridor outside.

“So…” Sirius said, slowly.

“So…”

“I’m sorry. For snapping at you back there.”

“Are you kidding? It’s okay, Sirius, don’t worry about it. And, uh, I’m sorry as well.”

Sirius cocked his head. “What for?”

“I—I don’t know. I panicked. I thought maybe you wanted me to apologise for, you know, kissing you…”

“Oh. Are you? Sorry, I mean.”

Remus just stared at him, blankly. “Uhm… well…it depends, I guess.”

“On?”

“On whether you wished I hadn’t or not.”

Sirius nodded. “Okay. Well, I don’t wish you hadn’t.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Okay…” They laughed.

“What now?” Remus asked, brushing a hand through his light brown hair. “I don’t—I don’t know what else to say.”

“I guess the next logical step would be for me to ask you out.”

“Oh?”

Sirius shrugged and took a small step closer. “It’s okay if you don’t want to.” He looked up and met Remus’ eye. “Do you?”

Remus reached his arms out and gently tugged on the front of Sirius’ jumper, pulling them close together before closing the distance between their lips. “Does that answer your question?” he said quietly, resting their foreheads together.

“Sirius, Mary wants ham and pineapple pizza, can you come in and tell her she— oh.” Sirius and Remus stepped apart but not quickly enough. James stood, blinking. “Uhm… right, sorry about that I didn’t realise—are you two…?”

“Oh, uh,” Sirius looked at Remus and felt a smile start to form on his face. “It’s…”

“Complicated?” Remus offered.

“Early days,” Sirius settled on. “Don’t go around telling people, I mean.”

James pushed his glasses further up his nose and nodded. “Yeah, right, of course. Sorry,” He seemingly forgot whatever it was he had come out to say and so turned and began to walk away.

“Oh, James,” Remus stopped him. “Tell Mary I’ll share ham and pineapple with her. I like it too.”

“Sirius,” James said, sincerely, "are you sure this is a guy you want to go any further with?”

Sirius burst out laughing, Remus flipped him off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're getting close to the end now! thanks for sticking with me :)


	10. X: Telling The Team

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penultimate chapter everyone!! (I have a feeling it's a little shorter than the others, my apologies, there is a fluffy epilogue coming your way though.)

It was like a weight had been lifted from Sirius’ shoulders. He hadn’t realised quite how much stress it had been until it was finally over.

Sirius was back to his usual self, coming up with new video ideas and filming plenty of joint content with James. He had even managed to orchestrate a rather simple prank that went down quite well with the audience. He had slowly been adding googly eyes to everything on James’ backdrop. Mary who was editing all of James’ videos knew about this, of course, and had agreed not to say anything. James never watched his videos back and so it took him almost two weeks to notice. People on Twitter eventually ratted Sirius out. James took it very well.

As well as that, Sirius had phoned Regulus back. In some ways it was awful. They had absolutely nothing to say to each other, the conversation was unbearably awkward. Still, neither had said anything hostile which was definitely an improvement. There had been vague talk of him and Regulus getting lunch if Regulus ever found himself in London, Sirius didn’t know how likely that was but it was a nice thought.

If that weren’t enough, Sirius had Remus. It had only been a month, but Sirius couldn’t remember being so happy. Going on dates in public was out of the question, Sirius was still rather haunted with the idea of photos being taken, and publicly announcing a relationship would put a lot of pressure on them both. Instead, they would go over to each other’s flats. Remus would cook Sirius dinner when they were at his, Sirius would order take out when it was the other way around. He would not inflict his cooking upon his worst enemy, let alone Remus.

Remus had slowly started appearing in more of his live streams, however, and he had also agreed to be part of one of the joint channels most successful videos yet: ‘Meet the team’. The seven of them had played board games together and recorded it. It turned out Remus was very good at cards against humanity and they had to end the video because everyone was laughing too hard to continue.

Peter’s absence was noticed by the company, of course, but Lily and Marlene between them had managed to do his job and so nothing fell too far behind. Actually, the Marauders were still doing better than ever before. James had hit seventy million on YouTube and Sirius was now almost at eighty. After the board game video, everyone in the office had publicised their social media accounts and they all had reached or were close to a million, Remus was now at three.

Nobody knew about Sirius and Remus, well, James knew a bit which probably meant Lily knew a little too. It was sort of thrilling to have a secret. It was also mildly impractical.

“Do you think we’ll ever tell the team?” Remus asked one evening. They were curled up on Sirius’ couch watching old comedy box sets. They’d managed to work their way through all of Blackadder and half of Fawlty Towers so far.

“I do want to. I was just worried…” he trailed off. Truthfully, he was worried that maybe they wouldn’t work out. That thought scared him.

Remus seemed to read his mind. “I know telling people makes it all seem more official. Maybe that isn’t a bad thing, though.”

Sirius hummed and hugged him slightly closer. Despite the cool temperature outside, it was pleasantly warm with the fire and the tea and Remus’ body. “I could kiss you whenever I wanted, that’d be a start.”

Remus kissed him briefly as if to further emphasise the point. “We wouldn’t have to get separate taxi’s everywhere.”

Sirius chuckled, “Yeah, that does actually seem quite ridiculous in retrospect. Does the office know you’re…?”

“Lily does, so James probably does too.” Sirius laughed at that. “It doesn’t matter though. If we told them about us, I’m sure they’d get the idea.”

Sirius kissed his forehead, then his cheek. “I do want to tell them. Not the internet though, not yet.”

“God, no. Have you seen the fanart?”

“I’m really glad you brought that up because I wasn’t sure how to go about it. Good to know the people think we’ll be good together, non?”

“These are the same people who shipped you and James right up until James’ wedding day.”

“Some people never stopped. They think we’re exes and are hiding it.”

Remus smiled and went silent for a moment. “Does it bother you that because of who you are, relationships are… more difficult?”

“It didn’t used to so much. I know talking about exes is meant to be a bit taboo but—”

“I don’t know, Sirius, you’ve talked about James plenty.”

“Ha ha,” Sirius deadpanned. “I found it easy for me and Fabian to be secret. Our relationship was far from perfect but even when it was alright, he wasn’t bothered about going out together so neither was I. I don’t know if it’s coming off too strong but I sort of wish I could do all that stuff now that I’m with you.”

“Yeah. I know. Look, I don’t want to push you if you aren’t ready, but I think telling the office would be…nice?”

“You’re right. Shit, okay, how do we even bring that up?”

“We could just start acting like a couple and see how long it takes for them to catch on.”

Sirius laughed, “Is it bad that I’m considering it?”

“I was joking, Sirius. Just bring it up casually whenever you’re ready, yeah?”

“Sure. Casually bring it up, I can do that.”

“Attention everyone!” Sirius jumped up onto the table in the middle of the office and everybody emerged from their various rooms to give him their attention. Sirius glanced over to Remus who rolled his eyes.

“What happened to casual?” he muttered.

“Speech!” James encouraged. Dorcas whooped in response.

“Right, okay. I’m sort of regretting standing on the table now I haven’t actually planned how to go about this.”

“Spit it out, Black, I’ve got work to do,” Marlene said, sticking out her tongue.

“Yep, okay. I sort of… have a boyfriend.”

“Aw, what happened to Remus?” James asked. Everybody looked at him, eyebrows raised. Sirius gave him a sarcastic thumbs up. “Oh, shit, you mean… uh, ignore me.”

“Right, well,” everyone looked back to Sirius, “suspense ruined I guess but, uh, yeah. Remus and I are…you know.”

Everybody looked to Remus now, as though they were expecting him to say something. “Surprise?” Was what he came up with. Laughter rang out through the room and Sirius hopped off of the table.

“Nobody say anything to the internet, please, I’d quite like to announce this one in my own time, yeah?” Sirius requested. Everybody quickly agreed and spent a few minutes offering support before slowly trickling into their respective rooms to continue with whatever they were doing.

Lily stayed back, grinning. “So… how long has this been going on for?”

“About a month.”

She rolled her eyes, “Took your time then. Remus has been here for almost four.”

Remus raised an eyebrow, “I’m sorry? I thought I was hired to edit videos not date Padfoot.”

“I’m just teasing, you were hired because you are a very good video editor and I thought you’d get on well with the team.”

“You flatter me,” Remus responded, eyes still narrowed as though he wasn’t quite convinced.

“So, how long until you come on a double date with me and James.”

Sirius grinned, “I knew you’d ask.” He turned to Remus, “Everyone I have ever dated has been invited on a double date.”

“You never say yes! Come on, me and James can cook dinner—”

“If James is going anywhere near the kitchen, I do not want to be a part of it,” Sirius interrupted.

“Fine, _I_ can cook dinner.”

“I’m in,” Remus replied.

“Ha! You, Remus Lupin, are my favourite boyfriend of Sirius’, congratulations.” With that, she turned and left.

“Hear that? I’m her favourite,” Remus repeated.

“Do you want to know why I’ve never said yes to a double date before?” Sirius asked. “Lily and James are my best friends; James is practically my brother. They’re the equivalent of meeting the family and I haven’t dated anyone I’ve been that serious about before.”

“Oh… is that why you wanted to wait before telling everyone here? Because they’re like your family?”

“Yeah…” Sirius admitted, voice small.

“I’m sorry if I pushed you into doing that, I didn’t—”

“No, Remus. I said I hadn’t dated anyone I was that serious about before. You’re the first.”

Remus kissed him.


	11. XI: One Year Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end :,)

_One year later_

“Ready for me to upload it?”

Sirius looked at the video thumbnail one more time. It was him sat on his usual filming sofa with a blurred-out figure next to him. ‘Meet my boyfriend’, it was titled.

“Just do it, James practically told everyone anyway.”

Remus laughed at that. James hadn’t meant to, of course, he had just accidentally referred to Sirius and Remus being Harry’s favourite gay uncles in a live stream two weeks ago. In a valiant attempt to save himself he had said that obviously he hadn’t meant they were a couple and then went into a very long speech about how being gay doesn’t mean you’re automatically attracted to every person of the same gender. Sirius and Remus had been planning to tell the world anyway and James’ rambling had been very amusing. James hadn’t thought so and he was yet to stop apologising no matter how many times Remus and Sirius said it was fine.

Maybe James had been the first one to outright imply it, but everybody seemed to have worked it out anyway. There were plenty of proof videos with clips and photos that were all trying to prove that Sirius was with Remus. Their relationship announcement was a long time coming and they knew it. There were many sarcastic comments about how this would be such a big surprise and how nobody would have seen it coming.

“Okay,” Remus clicked the upload button. “Done.”

Sirius smiled and kissed his cheek. “Come on, let’s check the subscriber count.”

Sirius’ subscriber count had been projected onto a wall all day. It was the final stretch to one hundred million. An absolutely unfathomable number that was almost a reality.

The office hadn’t really been working all day, James had rather prematurely purchased a cake which they were going to have to eat soon whether Sirius’ subscriber goal was reached or not. As well as that, Lily had brought Harry into work and so naturally everybody abandoned their tasks to play with him.

“Hey troublemaker,” Sirius cooed.

“Hello Sirius,” Lily replied.

“Ha-ha,” he replied dryly, “can I hold him?”

“Please do.” She passed Harry over to Sirius.

“Harry, say Padfoot, come on, say Padfoot!”

“Don’t you dare,” Remus replied, appearing at his side. “Come on little man, Moony. Can you say Moony?”

Harry just gurgled.

“He’s six months old, most babies don’t talk until at least ten.”

“Yes, but Harry isn’t most babies, Harry is a genius, aren’t you Harry!” Sirius replied. Harry threw his toy deer across the room and then began crying as though he wasn’t responsible for it being gone. “Maybe not,” Sirius muttered. Remus laughed as he picked it up and gave it to Harry who calmed down immediately.

Dorcas and James made a loud cheering sound which they had been keeping up every time Sirius hit some sort of new milestone. Everyone turned their heads. Five thousand more.

“Is the new merch on standby?” Dorcas asked, “That needs to be uploaded to the website as soon as that number reads one hundred million.”

Sirius realised the question was being directed at him. “I don’t know, I’m not the financial manager, am I?”

She sighed. “Regulus!”

Regulus poked his head out of the side office. “Can I help?”

“Is the—”

“Yes, the merch is ready to be uploaded, stop stressing.”

Four thousand more.

Sirius’ phone pinged. “Remus, the world officially knows we’re a couple!”

“You have your own post notifications on?” Remus laughed. “Nerd.” He kissed him.

Three thousand more.

“Okay everyone,” James called, “in here!”

Everybody stopped what they were doing and walked out to be able to see Sirius’ subscriber count.

Two thousand more.

“Oh my God,” Marlene muttered, “Sirius you’re breaking Twitter. Combination of everyone trying to get you to one hundred million and hashtag Wolfstar is real which is now trending.”

Remus checked his own phone. “Holy shit, I’ve just gained a million followers, how did—” he grinned. “You tagged me in a post.”

Sirius shrugged, “Whoops, did I?”

It was one of him and Remus sat in the front garden of their new house, Remus’ head on Sirius’ shoulder and Sirius laughing at the camera. He had just captioned it ‘Je suis content’.

“I’ve always liked your ship name,” Lily added, “I believe mine and James’ is just Jily which sounds like some kind of dessert.”

Sirius laughed. One thousand more.

“I’m getting the champaign!” James announced.

“Lily, hide your baby,” Sirius handed her back Harry, “you know what James is like with champaign corks.”

“Here,” Regulus offered, “I can take him if you like, I’ll go wait in the other room and upload all the new merch before Dorcas rips my head off.”

Lily smiled and handed him over. “Thanks, Regulus. You’ll know we’ve reached one hundred million when you hear a very high-pitched scream. It will be James.”

Regulus grinned before turning and walking away.

“He’s good with Harry,” Remus said, “isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Sirius watched his brother walk away. “I’m glad he reached out. Still can’t quite believe he got a degree from Oxford but accepted this job though…”

“Fuck yeah baby!” James cheered

Sirius looked up at his subscriber count. One hundred million.

“Good job Harry’s in the other room, I do not need him hearing language like that,” Lily muttered. She wrapped Sirius in a tight hug. “Well done babe.”

Remus kissed him once Lily had pulled away. “I’m proud of you.”

“Okay, ten points if you catch the cork,” James announced. Mary, who was standing closest to James, yelped and ducked behind the table.

There was a loud pop and the cork flew right towards Remus who quickly stepped aside, letting it fall to the floor.

Marlene offered to take the bottle away from James so he could hug Sirius. “You did it!”

“Gotta get you there next, hey?” Sirius replied, ruffling his hair.

“Good job.” Sirius let go of James to see Regulus handing Harry back to Lily.

“Regulus, is the—”

“Oh my god, Meadowes, yes the merch is uploaded.”

Dorcas laughed and gave him a thumbs up.

“Party at Sirius and Remus’?” James suggested. “I still haven’t seen it properly.”

Everybody quickly agreed to this and Sirius just shrugged, “Guess we’re hosting a party then.”

“Is Twitter down for everyone else?” Marlene asked suddenly. Everybody got out their phones.

Sirius quickly checked the ‘meet my boyfriend video’. It was his first video to reach as many views as it had in such a short period of time since his coming out video. “Remus,” he said slowly, “did we… break Twitter?”

“Maybe it’s a coincidence?”

Sirius burst out laughing and wrapped him in a hug. “Love you.”

Remus hummed. “Je suis content.”

**FIN**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there we have it! My second ao3 fic and my first time uploading it as i go which i have thoroughly enjoyed doing.
> 
> Big thankyou to everyone on instagram and tumblr who inspired me to turn a one off prompt into a full blown fanfic, i've had a great time writing it and your support has meant the world!
> 
> Another big thankyou to [Ri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlyy_hair_dont_care/pseuds/curlyy_hair_dont_care) my lovely beta reader who has also been roped into beta reading my next fic which i will now reveal to be a coffee shop au so stay tuned if you're interested :)
> 
> Thanks again for the kind comments and messages, it inspires me to write like nothing else.  
> Have a great day/evening/night, with love,  
> Bethan <3

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr and instagram @ bethansfandoms :)


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